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AI In The Bedroom

Some of you may remember the old Disney movie “Smart House” about a futuristic house designed to take care of a family and all of its needs. Yes, the house went rogue and locked the family in, but before that turn of events it took care of all the cooking, cleaning, and household management. We’re not too far off from this becoming the reality for every home.

It’s no secret that strides have been made in home technology over the past few years. Companies like Google and Amazon have built their own “personalities” to be placed on the counter and listen for commands. Rather than take the time to list the achievements that have been made already, this post will look towards the future of the smart home.

The Heated Battle:

A few days ago the Senior Manager of Amazon’s Alexa AI jumped ship to work for Google. This is hardly indicative that there’s been a shift in the power dynamic. All the same the move generated a lot of discussion about what the future holds for both companies in their smart home ventures. Couple this with the fact that Amazon recently decided to stop selling Nest (owned by Google) products on its website, and the tension only builds. Nest products can connect to Google Home, and both companies are fighting for a winner take all outcome.

With the race on for who dominates the American household, we’re sure to see some out of the box ideas come into play. But in terms of innovation this competition is only going to benefit consumers. As long as each of these companies has the other posing a market share threat, actions will be taken to partner with as many 3rd party businesses (products) as possible. This means two things: 1. Businesses that can come up with unique home appliances are going to thrive, and 2. The smart home is only going to get smarter.

Smart Apartments as the norm?

The end goal is a seamless flow of assistance. Whether it’s making your breakfast when your alarm goes off or turning your lights off and playing white noise until you fall asleep, smart homes will find their way into every possible part of daily life. Plans are currently underway in major cities like Chicago to build “Smart Apartments” that already have wiring and lights installed to be compatible with Alexa and Google Home.

And there’s really no foreseeable limit to what can and can’t be improved by tapping into a smart home. I think in the next few years “smart home compatible” is going to become a buzzword of sorts for all kinds of 3rd party appliances. The bottom line is that innovation is happening right now, and there’s plenty more to come. I look forward to seeing how Google and Amazon both find ways to improve our everyday lives with the upcoming tech.

What do you think lies on the horizon for the smart home? Let us know in the comments below!

ARCore is out!

In the summer of 2016 PokemonGo opened up pandora’s box for augmented reality (AR). The app was an instant hit around the world. While it’s user base has certainly declined since then, nearly two years later it still has a constant demand. Unfortunately, Pokemon are not the topic of this article (I could write some pretty good ones!). Instead we’ll focus on another stride in AR that took place earlier this week; Google’s release of ARCore.

On February 23rd Google officiallyreleased v1.0 of ARCoreavailable on over 100 million Android devices. Individual developers can now design and publish their AR-based apps on the Play Store, and this only means that AR is going to become even more prevalent in our everyday lives. Speaking of Developer, if you are interested in becoming a developer you should check out my new Android developer course on Phonlabteachable.com

Compatible Phones:

While the list of phones is limited at the moment, you can experience this new wave of AR if you have one of the following phones:

Pixel/XL

Pixel 2/XL

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8 Plus

Note 8

Galaxy S7/S7 Edge

LG V30/30+

Asus Zenfone AR

OnePlus 5 /5T

ARCore is certainly not the first AR software to get into the hands of developers (Apple’s ARKit and Unity’s Vuforia), but it still marks a significant step towards AR becoming the norm on every device. Google has said they are partnering with many manufacturers this year to enable AR in upcoming devices. The bottom line: AR is here to stay.

AR’s Implications

As a developer myself AR is a beautiful thing because it empowers us to create more immersive experiences that can connect with other people. You’ll often hear gamer’s say that gaming is an art form that encompasses many others. Video games are an interactive visual and audio experience that can invoke feelings just like any other art if the story is told correctly. AR only creates more opportunities for this to happen, so it’s not surprising that most of the successful AR apps right now are video games.

But of course AR has much more use than just as a gaming feature. Industry giants like Amazon have already began releasing their personal touches. Amazon has utilized ARKit for a few months on iOS, and ARCore is now available on Android phones so that users can visualize what products will look like in their homes before ever purchasing. Google also partnered with Snap to create a virtual tour of Barcelona’s famous Camp Nou soccer stadium. I think it’s safe to say every tech giant in the world is thinking about either how they can incorporate AR, or what impact it’s going to have on their future. Even outside of tech a lot of other industries are gearing up for change as well.

With so many new reality technologies emerging, its an exciting time to be either a developer or a user. And with all this buzz about AR, let’s not forget that the end of the spectrum exists with products like the Vive containing fully immersive VR worlds. These differ from AR in that 100% of your surroundings are computer generated, not just a portion. There’s certainly a spectrum of how immersive AR can be. If we put reality on one end and VR on the other, AR is everything that falls in between.

What do you think the future holds for the immersive computing spectrum? Let us know in the comments below.

R1 HD Amazon Bootloader unlock

BOOTLOADER UNLOCK METHOD 1

Hi Guys thanks to a team effort the Amazon R1 HD has root access with SP Flash Tool and TWRP recovery image.
I went ahead with the help of jcase and unlocked the bootloader because i wanted full access.

What i did is put together this script that will walk you through the steps to unlocking your Amazon R1 HD bootloader.
Steps are simple you just download this script that i created and click on the batch file once you have extracted it to your desktop. Follow the script it will walk you through everything.Note Root access is required to use the script and you can watch a video on how to root the device below. My Script as been updated to work on Linux Mac or Windows

Here are the steps to check if your bootloader is unlocked since people are asking. With the device turned on and adb debugging working. Run these commands in terminal or command windowadb reboot bootloader
Once in fastboot mode run this command to check if unlocked.fastboot getvar all
It will return yes for unlock and no for locked.

BOOTLOADER UNLOCK METHOD 2

Steps
1. Download SP-Flash-Tool-bootloader-unlock.zip
2. Extract the SP-Flash-Tool-bootloader-unlock.zip to your desktop. Note 7zip is great to extract files.
3. lauch Flash_tool.exe
4. select scatter-loading and browser to load MT6735_Android_scatter_R1_Unlock.txt
5. click download button to start.
6. now plug your phone into the computer. to boot the device to preloader and start the flash. You can do it two ways: 1. power off the phone and flash will start or 2. From a powered off stat power on the device while plugged into the computer. either way will start the sp flash tool.
7. once the flash is complete which should take seconds you can unplug the device and reboot it. Congrats you can now unlock the bootloader like any normal device now.

WARNING UNLOCKING YOUR BOOTLOADER WILL WIPE DATA FACTORY RESET THE DEVICE
How to unlock the bootloader now that you have turned on this feature.
1. power off the device
2. holder volume up and power until you are at the boot menu with recovery fastboot and normal as options scroll with volume up to fastboot then press power button to select
3. once in fastboot mode you will need to option a command window on your computer and make sure you have your adb and fastboot files
4. cd to the folder with your adb and fastboot files then run these commands
5. to maks sure your devices are working correctlyfastboot devices
6. to unlock the bootloaderfastboot oem unlock
7. follow the directions on your device screen. once it is finished unlocking you can check it withfastboot getvar all
8. Next to reboot the device usefastboot reboot
thats it your bootloader is unlocked
Note: if you have twrp recovery install and unlock your bootloader with METHOD 2 the device will try and boot to recovery and wipe data which will fail because you and twrp installed.
The only way to fix this is to boot to fastboot mode and run this commandfastboot format userdata
then just reboot out of fastboot mode and the device will boot up.fastboot reboot

Need help with these commands check out this video jump ahead to 6min 45sec to see commands above

Amazon Ads & Bloat Removed from the Motorola Moto G 4th gen

Hey Guys as soon as i heard that Amazon was offering a device with ads for a lower price to amazon prime member i was pumped and ready to remove those ads as soon as i got the device in hand.
well Amazon has made it really easy for us in many ways.
You can just flash one file that i have put together to remove the ads and all of the amazon apps in one shot.

Requirements

Moto G 4th gen tested on the XT1625 may work on other models i dont know.
Motorola Drivers installed
Motorola program RSDlite 6.2.4
The Files and remove-amazon-bloat.xml file i created HERE

Steps

1. Boot device into bootloader / fastboot mode by powering down then holding volume down and power until it boots
2. Open RSDlite 6.2.4 and select the remove-amazon-bloat.xml
3. press START and wait for device to reboot thats it once rebooted your amazon apps and lock screen ads are gone.

If you are interested in this device check out my first impressions video below

The Winner has been picked so congratulations to Dakkor winning a Amazon Fire Tablet 5th gen hope you enjoy it. If you want to remove the ads and install Google Play store on it make sure you check out my video on these steps HERE it is really simple. Winning comment is below. thanks for all the funny jokes it has been fun reading them.

Dakkor
Two bytes meet. The first byte asks, “Are you ill?
The second byte replies, “No, just feeling a bit off.

Winner has one week from today 10-8-15 to get in contact with me or another winner will be picked. Special Thanks to all 35 people that entered and must really be true followers that watched until the end of the review video. Not many entered means the best chance to win 🙂

Amazon Fire 7 budget friendly Tablet

Amazon Fire 7 is a budget friendly Tablet that was released today at one amazing price of just $49.99. at this price you could buy a couple of them or even one for every person in your family or for christmas presents for the anyone. Amazon has created a special offer just for this idea which is you can get 6 Fire 7 devices for just $250.00 with code FIRE6PACKat check out.

This would be a great tablet for your kids, a great entry level device. check out the specs below and as soon as i get one in hand i will have a review video on the Fire 7 for you to watch and see my impressions of this budget friendly device. I think that this is the year of affordable tech.

SPECS

Beautiful 7″ IPS display (171 ppi / 1024 x 600)

fast 1.3 GHz quad-core processor.

1GB Ram

Rear 2mp and front-facing VGA cameras.

All-new Amazon Underground, a one-of-a-kind app store experience where over $10,000 in apps, games and even in-app items are actually free – including extra lives, unlocked levels, unlimited add-on packs and more

8 GB of internal storage, only 5GB usable.

Free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices.

Add a microSD card for up to 128 GB of additional storage.

Updated user interface – Fire OS 5 designed for quick access to your apps and content plus personalized recommendations that make it easy to discover new favorites

Up to 7 hours of reading, surfing the web, watching videos, and listening to music

Amazon Fire TV Super Tool

Warning use this tool at your own risk i am not responsible for you bricking your device
That being said lets talk about what this does and how it works

see picture

How it works
1. your Fire TV Must have root and busy box installed plus adb network turned on for this to work
2. click on 2 amazon fire tv firmware installer.bat
3. follow script to install everything you will need
4. if you are having trouble watch my youtube video